If your company has (or plans to have) employees, a well-written employee handbook is an essential communication resource between you and your team. An effective handbook can set expectations for new hires, outline company policies, simplify onboarding, as well as enhance training and enforcement. Ultimately, your handbook ensures that your team is not only aware of your rules and policies, but also the federal and state laws governing their employment.

You can use your employee handbook to introduce your team to your company and its culture, explaining what’s expected of them—and what they can expect from you. Though it should never take the place of employment agreements, your employee handbook can provide you with an extra layer of legal protection if an employee ever decides to take you to court.

Your handbook should reflect the way you do business, and whatever policies you include in it should be consistently enforced. Depending on the size and scope of your operation, the handbook’s content can vary widely. However, the following nine topics are a good place to start.  

1) General company Information: Provide a general overview of your company, its philosophy, history, and culture. In addition to this introduction, point out that the handbook is not a contract—merely a general overview of your basic policies—and as such, it offers no promise of continued employment and is subject to change with time.

2) Attendance and time-off policies: Lay out your company’s policies regarding work hours, schedules, attendance, and telecommuting. Here, you may want to discuss sick leave, PTO, family and medical leave, bereavement, jury duty, and military leave. Also, list holidays your company observes, along with your vacation policy, spelling out how vacation time is earned and how to schedule time off.

3) Anti-discrimination policies: Include a section covering the state and federal laws related to non-discrimination, equal employment opportunity, and harassment, such as Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. You should let employees know how they’re expected to comply and describe the procedures you have in place for reporting violations and/or complaints.

Having a procedure in place for documenting complaints can help protect your business from legal liability for things like sexual harassment and discrimination. Just be sure you’re aware of the specific laws in your state, as they can vary greatly depending on where your offices—and employees—are located. As your Family Business Lawyer™, we can help ensure your company is in full compliance with all applicable employment laws.

4) Compensation: Discuss the methods of payment you offer like check, direct deposit, and online pay applications, along with listing pay periods and pay dates. If applicable, lay out your overtime policies as well as any additional compensation options, such as bonuses and stock options.

5) Standards of conduct: Discuss your expectations and rules for employee behavior. Depending on your company, this can include a wide variety of issues, such as dress code, smoking policy, sexual harassment, personal cell-phone use, alcohol/substance use, and inter-office dating.

Pay special attention to policies regarding web technology like email, social media, and texting. Inform your employees that such office communications are not private and may be monitored. You should also discuss any conflict-resolution procedures and/or employee discipline processes you have in place related to managing employee behavior.

6) Benefits: Include a brief summary of the benefits you offer, such as healthcare, life insurance, dental, vision, and retirement plans. Don’t go into specific details here; refer them to the official plan documents for a full explanation. That said, you should discuss who’s eligible for benefits, when and how to enroll, as well as how benefits can be changed after certain events, like marriage, divorce, and/or birth of a child.

7) Employee safety and security: Lay out your policies for creating a safe and secure workplace. This might include your compliance with any applicable Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) laws requiring employees to report accidents, injuries, potential safety hazards, safety suggestions, and health issues to management.

If applicable, include your safety policies regarding driving company vehicles, as well as any procedures for dealing with natural disasters and/or severe weather conditions. Don’t forget that by law many states require companies to inform employees of their states workers compensation policies in writing, so it may be a good idea to include those here too.

Finally, given the pandemic, you should clearly outline any rules or policies you have related to COVID-19. This may include policies and procedures concerning social distancing, masking, remote work, vaccinations, and symptom checking. 

8) Remote and hybrid work policies: If your company offers remote or hybrid work arrangements, make sure you formalize your policies. As such, your employee handbook should identify the positions eligible for remote work, provide a process for requesting and authorizing remote arrangements, and provide a process for terminating the remote arrangement. In addition, you should consider the impact remote work has on employee-related issues, such as compliance, cybersecurity, employee engagement, and liability, and clearly document any rules or policies affecting these issues.

9) Employment acknowledgement page: To verify that your employees have read and agree to abide by these rules, you should include an acknowledgement page at the end, which employees are required to sign. The acknowledgement should state that the employee has read, understands, and agrees to follow the handbook’s policies. It’s a good idea to make this page detachable, and once signed, place it in their personnel file.

This article is a service of Liz Smith, Family Business Lawyer™. We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule your appointment at 907-312-5436, or find a time for us to call you. 

Life insurance is a key component of your family’s estate plan, offering those who depend on you for their financial security a safety net in the event of your death. Whether those dependents include your spouse, children, aging parents, business associates, or all of the above, investing in life insurance is a way to say “I love you” and make certain that when you pass away, the people you love will have a reliable source of financial support to count on.

Although purchasing life insurance may seem fairly straightforward, it can actually be quite complex, especially given all of the different types of coverage available. Plus, because insurance agents often earn hefty commissions on the policies they sell, it can be challenging to determine exactly how much coverage (and what type of insurance) you actually need—and who you can trust to give you objective and accurate advice about that coverage.

With this in mind, we’ll break down the common types of life insurance coverage, explain how each of the different types work, and outline what you need to know in order to purchase a policy that will adequately address your needs, objectives, and family situation. While you should always meet with your Personal Family Lawyer® to ensure you get the proper coverage, here are a few of the most important factors to consider when shopping for a life insurance policy.

Betting On Your Life

Depending on the type and purpose of your coverage, a life insurance policy pays benefits to your family or business (whomever you choose as the beneficiary) in the event of your death. And while you don’t need it until you die, the earlier in life you purchase your policy, the less expensive your monthly or annual premiums will be. Of course, investing in life insurance early on also means that you’ll pay into the policy for a longer period of time.

By the same token, the healthier you are when you get life insurance, the less you’ll pay in premiums, because your policy is basically a bet between you and the insurance company about when you’ll die. The insurance carrier is betting they’ll be able to earn enough from the premiums you pay before you die, so that they’ll have received more than enough money to pay out the death benefit to your designated beneficiaries by the time you pass away. To that end, many carriers require a medical exam before you are issued a policy.

Life insurance comes in two main forms, which you can think of as permanent and non-permanent. With permanent coverage, such as whole life and universal life, as long as you pay the premiums, your insurance cannot be canceled, and your policy will be there and pay out when you die (unless you live longer than the guaranteed period). 

With non-permanent coverage, known as term life insurance, you pay premiums over a certain number of years—usually 10, 20, or 30—and if you have not died during that period, the insurance ends, your premiums are gone, and no benefits are paid out when you die.

Permanent vs Term Life Insurance: Which Do You Need?

To determine which type of life insurance policy you should purchase for your family—permanent or term—you’ll need to consider a number of factors. When it comes to buying life insurance for your family, you will need to die with life insurance coverage in place if any of the following three scenarios apply:

1. You are likely to have dependents—minor children, a non-working spouse, or senior parents—who rely on you for their financial needs, and you will not have enough saved up at the time of your death to provide for their needs for the rest of their life.
2. You have a business that will need a cash infusion if you die to keep it running, until it can be sold or for your loved ones to buy out a business partner.
3. You will have an estate tax bill that you want to make sure is covered by life insurance so your family doesn’t have to sell assets to pay your estate taxes.

In each of these situations, you want to make sure you have either term life insurance that will continue long enough to cover your needs, or you’ll want to consider purchasing permanent coverage.

Term Life Insurance
The coverage periods of term life policies can vary widely: 10, 15, 25, 30 years, or longer. Because your coverage expires after a certain number of years, term life insurance is much cheaper than permanent. Term policies are typically used by people who expect that they’ll only need the insurance for a certain period of time or for a certain purpose, but at some point in the future, they will no longer need the coverage.

For example, you might purchase term life coverage in order to pay off your home mortgage in the event you die before it’s paid off. Or you might have minor children, who rely on your income for their basic needs, and you need a term policy to ensure they have enough money to live on until they become financially independent should you die before they reach adulthood.

Permanent Life Insurance

Permanent life insurance comes in several different forms, such as whole life, universal life, and variable universal life. And it’s mostly used for estate tax planning, very high-end income tax planning, and can also be used as key-person insurance, which pays out benefits if you fill a vital role in a company that would need cash upon your death to continue operating. As mentioned earlier, the various forms of permanent life insurance pay a death benefit whenever you die, no matter how long you live (unless the policy contract has a termination provision at a specific age). 

Permanent life insurance policies typically have two components: the amount that goes toward paying for the life insurance, and the amount that builds up as an investment, called the “cash value” component. The cash value amount of your premium is invested tax-free, and depending on the policy, you may be able to use the cash value component in several ways: You can borrow against it throughout your lifetime (in which case you pay interest to the insurance company), you can take out cash withdrawals (in which case your death benefit would be reduced accordingly), or you can use it to pay future premiums.

There are some caveats to mention here: You often need to pay premiums on a permanent life insurance policy for 10 to 15 years before there is enough cash value to borrow against or use to pay premiums. If you access the cash value of your life insurance, you’ll reduce your death benefit, and you also may have to pay fees or taxes, depending on the policy and how much you take out. And if you withdraw too much, your coverage could terminate.

Keep in mind that life insurance is for providing your loved ones with a death benefit when you die, so you should always consult with us, your Personal Family Lawyer® and financial advisor before accessing the cash value funds.

How Much Life Insurance is the Right Amount? 

When purchasing life insurance, you’ll want to make sure you have enough term life insurance to cover the expenses that your dependents will require until they are no longer dependents, or until you are certain that you will have enough money saved up to cover the lifetime needs of those dependents.

If you have children with special needs or a non-working spouse, they will require a longer period of care after your death, compared to a family with two incomes and children who will achieve their own independence in their late 20s or early 30s. To determine the right amount of term life insurance, consult with us, your Personal Family Lawyer® or a fee-only financial planner.

If you plan on staying in your business well beyond the typical retirement age, if you are an absolutely indispensable part of your company’s continued success, or you will have estate taxes to cover upon your death, you should consider permanent life insurance. In that case, you’ll want to consult with us, as your Personal Family Lawyer®, before you meet with an insurance agent to make certain you understand the terms of the policy you are buying and why you are buying it.

Your Trusted Advisor

We all have unique assets, liabilities, and family situations, so there’s no way to know exactly what types and amounts of life insurance coverage your family needs without a full evaluation. Before you sit down with an insurance agent, meet with us, your Personal Family Lawyer® to identify the appropriate life insurance policy for your particular situation. Schedule your appointment today to get started.

This article is a service of Liz Smith, Personal Family Lawyer® in Juneau, Alaska. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love.  That’s why we offer a Life & Legacy Planning Session,™ during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before, and make all the best choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today at 907-312-5436 to schedule a Life & Legacy Planning Session and mention this article to find out how to get this $750 session at no charge; or book a time for our team to call you at a time you choose.